Protester shot dead had served in air force
THE protester shot dead by police during the storming of the US Capitol was an air force veteran who wrote on Twitter a day earlier: ‘Nothing will stop us’.
Ashli Babbitt, 35, was fatally wounded as she tried to enter the House of Representatives chamber when a plainclothes officer shot her in the chest. She served 14 years in the US Air Force with tours in Afghanistan and Iraq before being deployed to Kuwait and Qatar with the National Guard.
Mrs Babbitt was a fervent Trump supporter and a day before the protest she tweeted: ‘Nothing will stop us... they can try and try and try but the storm is here and it is descending upon DC in less than 24 hours... dark to light!’
This refers to QAnon, the far-Right conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is fighting against a cabal of Satan-worshipping paedophiles, leading towards a day of reckoning known as ‘the storm’.
Mrs Babbitt was one of four people who died during the carnage in Washington on Wednesday. The other three deaths, of a 50-year-old man, a 55-year-old man and a woman of 34, were described as ‘medical emergencies’.
A fifth person suffered non-fatal injuries after being stabbed outside the Trump International Hotel. Mrs Babbitt had previously
‘Climbed through the window and got shot’
been prosecuted for reckless endangerment, malicious destruction of property and tampering with a car. She was also the subject of two restraining orders. Her death prompted some of Mr Trump’s critics to say he had blood on his hands for stoking the rioters.
Footage of the incident posted on Twitter shows Trump supporters inside the Capitol building smashing the windows of double doors which lead to the House chamber.
Mrs Babitt tries to climb through a broken window in one of the doors and one of the rioters shouts: ‘He’s got a gun.’ A shot rings out and her body is sent flailing backwards.
Blood can be seen pouring from her mouth as police officers surround her with rifles to secure the hallway.
Witness John Sullivan Sullivan said: ‘The second that she climbed through the window, she got shot and fell backwards.’
The shooting is being investigated by Washington police’s internal affairs unit.
Mrs Babbitt had travelled to Washington from her home in San Diego, California without her husband, Aaron Babbitt.
Fifteen Washington DC police officers were injured during the melee. One is in a serious condition after he was pulled into a crowd of demonstrators and assaulted.